Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026

The majority voted in favour of a motion to agree with the amended form of the bill. This means they can now decide whether to pass it altogether.

Rebellion

The Coalition was split on this vote, with the Liberal Party and Liberal National Party (with one exception) voting "yes" and the National Party split with one MP voting "no" and another "yes". The one LNP exception was Flynn MP Colin Boyce, who crossed the floor to vote "no" against the rest of the Liberal National Party.

What is the bill's main idea?

According to the bills digest, which is a document prepared by the parliamentary library:

On 12 January 2026, the Prime Minister announced that the Parliament would be recalled to consider the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026. While the Bill has yet to have been tabled in Parliament an Exposure Draft of the Bill was released on 13 January 2026. This Bills Digest has been prepared in relation to the Exposure Draft of the Bill (the Bill).

The Bill aims to combat antisemitism, hate and extremism ... laws in Australia and includes a number of significant amendments, such as:

• introducing a range of new offences including an aggravated offence for religious, spiritual or other leaders who advocate or threaten violence; and a racial vilification offence that makes it a crime to promote or incite racial, national or ethnic hatred or disseminate ideas of superiority based on such factors

• newly defining ‘hate crime’ in Commonwealth law as certain crimes targeting persons based on race or national or ethnic origin

• providing a new framework to allow organisations to be listed in regulations as ‘prohibited hate groups’, and introducing a range of offences connected to hate groups

• amending the reasonable person test for offences involving Nazi or prohibited symbols by requiring courts to consider their impact on a reasonable person from the targeted group

• requiring courts to consider, when sentencing a person, whether a federal offence was motivated by racial, national, or ethnic hatred

• amending customs regulations to prohibit the import and export of violent extremist material and prohibited hate symbols, and strengthening importation controls on firearms

• enabling the Minister for Home Affairs to refuse to grant, or to cancel, a visa on the basis of hate motivated conduct and offences relating to the spread of hatred and extremism ...

The Bill has been referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security which has commenced an urgent review into the Bill. Submissions to the Committee have been published on the Committee’s website.

Note that the bill originally also included firearm-related provisions, which are now included in a separate bill.